Radiation is invisible, and it has always been imbued with a diverse range of magical powers in science fiction. Ironically, in a very real sense, radiation does make people invisible. Once groups of people have become victims of a radiological contamination, they are, in addition to being poisoned (or being traumatized by the possibility that they have been poisoned), marginalized and forgotten. Their traditions and communities are fragmented, and they are shamed into concealing their trauma. When contamination occurs, there is a strong impulse even among many victims to not admit that they have been harmed, for they know the fate that awaits them if they do.

Thus it is that hibakusha (the Japanese word for radiation victims) become invisible. When a new group of people become victims, such as in Fukushima in 2011, they feel that they have experienced a unique new kind of horror. For them, for their generation, it is new, but for those who know the historical record, it is a familiar replay of an old story. The people of Fukushima should know by now that they are bit players who have been handed down a tattered script from the past.

A case in point is “Blind Faith,” the superb 1981 book by journalist Penny Sanger, about the small irradiated Canadian town of Port Hope on the shores of Lake Ontario. In the 1970s, it faced (and more often failed to face) the toxic legacy of processing first radium, then uranium for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

When Henry Miller (1891-1980) returned from France to America in 1939, he was quick to identify air conditioning as both a metaphor and a real cause of a lamentable degradation of life. His first writing upon his return, published as “The Air Conditioned Nightmare” in 1945, was based on his road trip across America in 1939.

Looking at this book from the 21st century, it is surprising to read his tirades against Americans’ submission to technology. We have come to think of the 1930s as an economically depressed time when industry regressed and people were forced back to agrarian self-reliance. The contemporary perception is that the reaction to the excesses of materialism didn’t become apparent until the 1960s when baby boomers rebelled against the affluence and suburban culture of the 1950s.

But in every crisis there is transformation, and Miller was able to notice the changes going on in spite of the Depression. In the same way that iPhones became an embedded item in our economy regardless of the crash of 2008, there were similar changes in the 1930s.

For years, politicians and commentators have said that their policies are just like the Marshall Plan, officially called the European Recovery Program (E.R.P.), in order to tout their polices as positive.

Just a few examples: Al Gore called for a “global Marshall Plan” to combat global warming in 1993; writers for the Worldwatch Institute called a “Marshall Plan” to advance human security and control terrorism; history professor Charles Maier called for a “Marshall Plan” for Germany; and UNCTAD having a 62 page report describing how a “Marshall Plan” could be developed for the world’s poorest countries. Even Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who is known by environmentalists for opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, touted his vision for “shock therapy” in Russia, which hurt many Russians after it was implemented in 1995, as based on the Marshall Plan [1]. Another great example of this is Naomi Klein’s argument that George W. Bush’s Iraq reconstruction plan was the “anti-Marshall plan.” [2] This article aims to set the record straight about the Marshall Plan and to assess if it is right to invoke it today.

The view expressed by Jeffrey Sachs is a clear example of the common view of the Marshall Plan. This plan, which was simply the allocation of $2.6 billion for Europe “to reconstruct its infrastructure and industry after the Second World War” was described by Sachs as showing “how a modest amount of monetary infusion created a base for [Europe’s] economic recovery to take hold.” [1]

Learning the whole story and truth about the Marshall Plan is important. This article aims to contribute to that story and open up new ways of understanding what the Plan was really about.